DeKalb’s city council recently okayed a plan to send an application to the EPA for a brownfield cleanup grant of $2.5 million. The grant award would cover cleanup of the contaminated site on South Fourth Street formerly known as Protano’s Auto Parts (“Protano’s”). The city’s contracted engineering firm, Fehr Graham, investigated the former auto salvage…
Category: Energy & Environment
Series: DeKalb’s water shenanigans
DeKalb’s often at odds with its own community over issues relating to its water supply, and has been for almost 30 years. The city now properly mitigates the radium content of our water, but Water Fund usage and industrial water users are recurring topics. The posts listed below are foundational, but do consider checking the…
DeKalb’s commuter rail roadmap, ignored
City of DeKalb is spending $98,000 on a study of the feasibility of bringing commuter rail service to our city. But the information is already available. DeKalb County examined feasibility at the end of 2015. Led by then-county board chair Mark Pietrowski, an informal meeting of the Metra Rail Exploratory Committee included representatives from DeKalb,…
Water reservations in DeKalb
Water conflicts continue to develop in the Joliet area. A small but vocal group of protesters gathered on the steps of Joliet city hall on Monday night to rail against Mayor Robert O’Dekirk’s controversial plan to solve a looming water crisis by tripling rates on homes throughout the area…The protesters, which included Joliet City Councilman…
DeKalb taps into regional water trends
The Better Government Association recently published an article about Joliet’s ambitious and controversial mayor, who plans to buy Lake Michigan water from Chicago. [Water scarcity] tensions have arrived in northeastern Illinois, which, despite its proximity to the world’s fourth-largest source of fresh water, faces a coming water crisis. Among the first battlegrounds are Chicago’s southwest…
A look back: DeKalb and its radium water
25 years ago, residents of DeKalb organized to pressure the city to reduce the amount of radium in our drinking water. The city, which already had obtained a variance that allowed it to exceed EPA limits for radium, required a second variance in 1996 to obtain permits to extend water mains for new construction. This…
Counties Generating Revenue from Housing Prisoners
Boone County Watchdog tipped me off about a new revenue source for the blog’s home county: transporting and housing federal prisoners. The full story comes from the Register Star: BELVIDERE — A negotiating firm plans to generate tens of thousands of dollars in new revenue for the Boone County jail without changing day-to-day operations. The…
November 25 Council Agenda
The city has put up another meeting agenda for tomorrow that’s a revision of the original, so all you early birds will have to read the new one. However, keep the old one handy because they didn’t include the rest of the packet with the revision. Highlights: Item 1: Another hit to the Public Safety…
Municipal Electrical Aggregation & You
An organization I belong to has hundreds of members. During a recent general membership meeting, one of them stood up and pitched the idea that the group should be selling his brand of electricity to the rest of us as a fundraiser. The board of directors asked him to confirm whether his is a multi-level…
Contributions to Local State Reps from Energy & Utility Companies
There’s been a lot of talk about how ComEd and Ameren are spreading a lot of cash among state legislative leaders in hopes of an override of the governor’s veto of the Smart Grid legislation. Here’s a look at 2011 contributions from energy and utility companies to our legislators, State Rep. Bob Pritchard and State…